


Remember When (We Used To Be)

by flipflop_diva



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Cap!Peggy, F/F, Memory Alteration, Winter Soldier Natasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 19:49:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5061730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Peggy stared, her heart thudding in her chest, her hand that was still holding the gun shaking. Those green eyes. Those beautiful green eyes. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. It was impossible.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Natalia,” she whispered</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Who the hell is Natalia?”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember When (We Used To Be)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Netgirl_y2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/gifts).



> Netgirl_y2k, I loved your prompt of Cap!Peggy and Winter Soldier!Natasha! Thank you for that! I had a lot of fun envisioning how that would be, while trying to stay true to who both of them are and also what sort of relationship there is between Captain America and the Winter Soldier in canon. I hope I succeeded at least a little, and I really, really hope you enjoy!

Peggy stared, her heart thudding in her chest, her hand that was still holding the gun shaking. Those green eyes. Those beautiful green eyes. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. It was impossible.

“Natalia,” she whispered, the last syllable lingering on her tongue, the name unspoken in so, so long.

The green eyes didn’t change. Their gaze cold, cruel, unwavering.

“Who the hell is Natalia?”

•••

She stared at her hands clenched tightly together, at the metal cuffs locked around her wrists, but the only thing she could see were those green eyes, those impossibly green eyes, staring at her as if from a time capsule.

“I thought she was dead,” she whispered to no one in particular. “There was no way she could have survived that fall.”

No, that wasn’t true. There was one way. There was always one way.

“Hydra,” Sam Wilson said for her.

Peggy didn’t look at him — she knew she needed to focus on the mess they were in, to focus on Project Insight, on Hydra, on getting out of this armored vehicle alive, but she couldn’t. Not now. Not when only one thing mattered.

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

“It’s not your fault, Peggy,” she heard Sharon Carter say. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have known.”

She heard a whisper, a low murmuring between Sam and Sharon, two people who barely counted as friends in this new world. Peggy cracked her eyes open. One of the guards watching them raised his weapon menacingly.

“The Winter Soldier,” Sam said softly. “She was special to you?”

Peggy let herself smile at that, a small bark of a laugh escaping her mouth. “Yeah,” she said. “You could say that.”

•••

The orphanage was only two blocks away from where she grew up, a dank square gray building that always looked like it was going to topple over if the wind were to grow heavy enough. Most of their neighbors avoided it, as if the building itself could poison them with bad luck.

Peggy never minded, though. She walked by it every day, trying to peer in the windows, until her mother would grab her hand and usher her along.

It was cold the day she first saw her, a biting cold that had Peggy shivering in her long wool coat that hung down past her knees. The little girl had nothing on but a pair of threadbare pajamas and boots with a hole in the right toe. She was drawing a picture in the dirt with a stick, though, as if nothing bothered her.

“Mother!” Peggy had whispered, horrified, but her mother had just tugged at her hand and pulled her along.

She stuffed an extra sweater under her jacket the next day, when her mum wasn’t looking, snuck down the street when she was supposed to be jumping rope with the children next door.

The little girl was there again. This time she lifted her head and stared at Peggy as she approached and set the sweater on the ground just beside the child.

“For you,” she said. 

The little girl tilted her head to the side, her long red hair dancing against her shoulders as she did so. 

“I want you to have it,” Peggy said. “So you won’t be cold.”

The little girl frowned, but she picked up the sweater curiously, looking from it to Peggy. She said something then, a string of sounds Peggy had never heard before, none of which made any sense. The frown was still on the little girl’s face, but her eyes — her green eyes — seemed to sparkle in the winter light.

Peggy turned around and walked home, but all she could think about was the little red-haired girl.

Peggy was seven that day.

Natalia was five.

•••

“She’s going to be there, Cap, you know that right?” Sam said. “She’s already tried to kill you twice.”

“I know,” Peggy answered. She let her eyes roam across the Potomac, as though she could see into the future, could see what her life was going to become after tomorrow.

“If it comes down to her or Hydra, you might have to kill her.”

“No, I won’t.”

Sam shook his head. “She’s trying to kill you.”

“I can reach her.”

“She’s not in there anymore.”

“Yes, she is,” Peggy said. “I know she is.”

•••

Natalia’s face was pressed against Peggy’s shoulder in the dark. Peggy could feel her trembling. She wrapped an arm around her best friend, stroked her long, silky hair.

“I don’t want them to send me away,” Natalia whispered. Her English was perfect now, flawless, not even a hint of an accent remained. 

The orphanage down the street was for little children, not for teenagers. Natalia’s birthday was the next day. She would be too old to stay there.

“Can’t your mum adopt me?” Natalia mumbled. Peggy knew she was only half kidding.

“I’ll see you again,” Peggy told her. “I promise.”

“What if I don’t like where they send me?”

“You’re the bravest, strongest person I’ve ever met. You’ll be fine.”

Natalia shifted against her, lifted her head. Even in the dark, Peggy could see the tears in her eyes.

She hated to see her friend cry. Natalia had already been through too much. She leaned forward then, pressed her lips to the teardrops on her cheeks, smoothed them away.

Natalia made a sound, somewhere between a laugh and a cry. She lifted her head. Their lips met, for the briefest second, before they parted.

Peggy was fifteen.

Natalia was almost thirteen.

•••

Cold metal fingers encircled her throat. Colder green eyes bored into hers. 

Peggy felt her grip on the disc start to slip, any last chance to stop Project Insight about to fall through her fingers. 

"Natalia," she gasped. "Natalia, please. It's me. You know me."

"I don't know you." Her voice was lower than Peggy remembered, more menacing than she'd ever heard. 

"You do know me!" Peggy forced out. She felt the last traces of air leaving her. She willed her eyes to stay open. "I love you!"

For a brief second, something flashed in Natalia's eyes. Maybe a memory, maybe just a feeling. Peggy knew she would never know, but it didn't matter. Natalia's fingers loosened just a fraction of an inch. 

It was enough. 

Peggy lashed out, with all the power the serum gave her, hitting Natalia directly in the sternum. She watched her former best friend, the woman she still loved, who she had loved through space and time, stumble backward. 

There wasn't time. Peggy grabbed the disc and whirled around. She only had a few seconds to save the world. 

Saving Natalia would have to come later. 

•••

Natalia's fingers traced the lines of Peggy's new uniform. 

"You look good," she whispered, almost in awe. "You're going to do great things, Margaret Carter."

Peggy reached out, threaded her fingers through those silky red locks. "So are you, Natalia Romanova."

Natalia laughed, the one sound that could always send Peggy's heart soaring. "I am a nothing," she said. There was no sadness in her tone, just the knowledge of something she knew to be true. 

"You," Peggy breathed, right before she kissed her, right before she let her know exactly how she felt about her, "are anything but nothing."

Peggy was nineteen that day. 

Natalia was seventeen. 

•••

"We think she saved you," Sam told her just minutes after she opened her eyes to find herself in a stark white room that could only belong to a hospital. He didn't say who. He didn't have to. 

"I knew she was still in there," Peggy said. 

"You don't know that," Sam started but Peggy shook her head. He changed course. "What are you going to do now?"

"Whatever it takes."

Peggy closed her mind. Behind her eyelids, Natalia was five years old, too small and too skinny, drawing pictures of flowers in the dirt. 

"Just hang on, Nat," Peggy told her in her mind. "I'm coming. I'll save you." She smiled to herself before adding the final words. 

“I love you.”


End file.
